Challenge: Make non-superhero comics more popular in the U.S.

Usually, when you think of American comics outside of the funny pages, you think superheroes. (And even the newspapers have Spider-Man and the Phantom.) Yet romance comics were once popular, in addition to crime and horror comics. In the alternate world of Watchmen, pirate-themed comics are preferred because the public has become disillusioned with costumed superheroes. European comics took a different direction from superheroes too, as seen in Smurfs, Tintin, etc.

How did superheroes take over American comics, and how might other genres compete? The easy answer is getting rid of the Comics Code, but people still read romance comics in the 1950s-1960s at least. Bonus brownie points to anyone who can offer a point of divergence after the introduction of the Comics Code.

EDIT: Could someone please move this to After 1900? I must have been looking in the wrong forum when I posted this.
 
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Has there really never been an American equivalent of the Beano, Dandy, Eagle, 2000AD etc? I ask because a cursory glance on the web doesn't seem to mention any.
 
Use daily it have something a little like it in the form of Nick Mag and Disney adventure. The comics were only for portions of them, but the whole thing was cartoony. Though of course Nick Mag found more ways to fill space. Just a shame they shut down, especially before people could scan all their magazines to preserve as a time capsule for prosperity. Anyways, Italians and Scandinavians have plenty of artists making more and more Disney comics, which they mix in with old American ones. Given the artwork, both on the old and new comics, I don't think it would be up the alley of children in the US. And I suppose maybe Disney could have printed a lot of comics in the 90s to go with their cartoons. Actually, I just recalled how Carl Barks was so upset about how he was basically being emotionally blackmailed to go to lots of signings around the world for his material for free, even though they never paid him a dime for the stories after his initial paychecks. He mentioned Disney being the only comic people to not pay their cartoonists that.
 
Beano, Dandy , Eagle, 2000AD

Links for those who have no idea about the above. There are many,many others which formed an important part of my childhood in the sixties (apart from 2000AD which started in the late 70s). I should also mention Victor and TV21 as well! Then there are all the Commando books!

(Although my favourite comic strip had to be the Trigan Empire in Look and Learn. The Don Lawrence artwork was superb)
 
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Usually, when you think of American comics outside of the funny pages, you think superheroes. (And even the newspapers have Spider-Man and the Phantom.) Yet romance comics were once popular, in addition to crime and horror comics. In the alternate world of Watchmen, pirate-themed comics are preferred because the public has become disillusioned with costumed superheroes. European comics took a different direction from superheroes too, as seen in Smurfs, Tintin, etc.

How did superheroes take over American comics, and how might other genres compete? The easy answer is getting rid of the Comics Code, but people still read romance comics in the 1950s-1960s at least. Bonus brownie points to anyone who can offer a point of divergence after the introduction of the Comics Code.

EDIT: Could someone please move this to After 1900? I must have been looking in the wrong forum when I posted this.
Maybe Franco-Belgian comic artists establish themselves in US ? European styled comics in the US Comic Industry would be interesting. Science Fiction Pirates, Detective, Cowboys, Historical, Fantasy and Mystery and Adventure Comics in Belgien style could be an enrichment.
 
Maybe Franco-Belgian comic artists establish themselves in US ? European styled comics in the US Comic Industry would be interesting. Science Fiction Pirates, Detective, Cowboys, Historical, Fantasy and Mystery and Adventure Comics in Belgien style could be an enrichment.
It would be from a different culture. And one with a different style of puns.
 
How did superheroes take over American comics, and how might other genres compete? The easy answer is getting rid of the Comics Code, but people still read romance comics in the 1950s-1960s at least. Bonus brownie points to anyone who can offer a point of divergence after the introduction of the Comics Code.
The Comics Code is a red herring in this case - if you look at the big titles of, for example Franco-Belgian comics (since you specifically
mentioned Smurfs and Tintin), you'll find that quite a lot of them (or an equivalent American comic) would have no problem with
the Comics Code or at least less than American superheroes had.
Not to mention that romance comics didn't die until the mid-seventies, and several genres (e.g. westerns and war) became
semi-invisible because the big two's titles became incorporated in the superhero universes (before or after getting cancelled),
not because they disappeared post-Comics Code.

Also, it is not that European (Franco-Belgian, British and probably Italian) took a different direction - it is, as usual, the Americans
who are the exception.
(Obligatory link to remind people that non-American comics have superheroes as well, even if the site uses a very wide definition.)
(And Tintin was, of course, created before superhero comics was even a thing - in 1929.)

So, how can other genres compete?
The answer is even more deceptively simple than "get rid of the comics code" - change or add to the people working in the
comics industry. People who want to (and are able to) create - OR PUBLISH - other genres.
I've seen the claim/observation that it was pretty much the same guys who were the comic book industry from the forties to
the mid- to late sixties or so, and there wasn't much room for anybody else.

The obvious example being that having actual women write girls' comics did wonders in Japan, and that didn't take off until
the early sixties (when manga magazines went weekly and most of the men doing girls' comics went off to do boys' comics).
 
And I suppose maybe Disney could have printed a lot of comics in the 90s to go with their cartoons.
Gladstone Publishing, 1986-1990 and 1993-1998.
Disney Comics, 1990-1993. (Titles include DuckTales, Chip´n´Dale Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin...)

It would be from a different culture. And one with a different style of puns.
I've been told that the puns worked pretty well in the British edition of Asterix, and I'm sorely pressed
to think of any other big titles where the puns are as important.
It also seems that Franco-Belgian comics have done pretty well in cultures that are more different from
"French- and Dutch-speaking westerners" than "USAmerican westerners" are.
 
I've been told that the puns worked pretty well in the British edition of Asterix, and I'm sorely pressed
to think of any other big titles where the puns are as important.

True but then they were rewritten by Derek Hockridge for the British market with British puns replacing the French ones: for example the Druid becoming Getafix instead of Panoramix. Interestingly the first book retains the French names and is more of a straight translation and it is nowhere near as funny (in Britain at least) as the later ones.
 
And that - something that I believe in the translation business is known as "standard procedure"* - would not work
in the US, because...?

*The Druid is Miraculix in Swedish.
No valid reason that I can think of, so why hasn't it been done? If a French comic can be successful in Britain then the US should be a piece of cake:biggrin:
Surely there is a Quebecois version?
 
Surely there is a Quebecois version?
I do believe there is, or rather a non-localised edition.
I do know that when Lucky Luke visited Quebec a few years ago (publication-wise) Quebecois celebrities appeared in cameos.
I also know that at least some older (sixties-seventies) comic books list the Quebec price on the cover (and the Swiss and the Belgian
and I'm pretty sure I've seen some (post-independence) with the Algerian!).
 
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